Everything you know is wrong: Oranges aren’t orange.

 

http://io9.com/everything-you-know-is-wrong-oranges-aren-t-orange-1097312640?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+io9%2Ffull+%28io9%29

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Many fruits are picked while they’re still a little green and left to ripen during transport, in the store, or just become hard little fruit-bombs in a bowl in peoples’ homes. Most green oranges, on the other hand, are perfectly ripe. By the time they turn orange they’re sliding downhill towards rot. The green skin of an orange isn’t indicating that not enough of its natural color is coming through. It’s just pumped full of chlorophyll. In warm, sunny countries, that chlorophyll stays in the fruit. It’s only when the fruit is exposed to cold that the chlorophyll dies off and the orange color shines through.

Since most people associate green fruit with unripe fruit, most green oranges in the United States and Europe have to be colored to be sellable. In some cases they are exposed to ethylene gas, which breaks down chlorophyll. Some are shocked with cold, or covered in wax. Some are scrubbed down with detergent and some are just dipped in dye. Anything for a sale.”